Switch Discussion Thread

[BogusMeatFactory]

I'm happy the virtual console is dead. Goodbye arbitrary pricing structure, imposed emulator (Which I am sure rubbed other companies the wrong way), and drip fed release schedules.

There is a reason the Wii u virtual console was slow and had no weight behind it beyond hardware sales and it is definitely the reason as to why Nintendo is more hands off for how third parties want to package and sell old titles for the switch.

Lead by example to show that these games sell. Look at Super Mario bros. VS. It sells like hotcakes! People want the old stuff and companies like Capcom and Square will fall in suit in releasing their old stuff, but now on their terms.

We could not have a verticle shmup in the old virtual console like we can with the switch now.

[marurun]

As long as companies give us affordable options for playing their classics, I'm OK with it. But I really did like some of the convenience and uniformity of the old VC, or at least its Wii incarnation. It was a perfect fit for the Wii and for the time. Maybe not so much today, but that's OK.

[Segata]

Still would be nice of Nintendo to organize the Eshop better. Like genres and classics. Easier to search for Gate of Doom or a Neo geo game or those Shmups.

[ElkinFencer10]

I adore the Virtual Console and I'm deeply saddened by its demise. I never really minded the pricing at least on Wii - NES games are this much, SNES games are that much, Genesis games are this much, and add a dollar or two for previously untranslated games. It all seemed pretty fair to me. Regardless, though, I buy new platforms for new games, so it's not the biggest loss to me, but it makes me sad nonetheless.

[Tanooki]

I'm okay with Virtual Console dying. It has become clear that Nintendo lost interest in the product - and I think that I'd prefer for more effort to be put into re-releases of classics (online multiplayer, etc) Also, VC steals market share from smaller developers and pushes them away from the market place.

As long as there is some venue for older games, VC won't be missed.

Basically my sentiment, glad to see it dead. People with small budgets would just buy safe old games I'm sure, and those few bucks could go to something more deservingly preserved like Hamster does or another new developer with a nice cheap bit of fun to be had. No big shadow lording over stuff, a shadow Nintendo gave up on years ago with piddling unsteady releases. Like isiola said, they could have done right by people having a cross platform pick up on the stuff, but the only thing they ever part way did was the early WiiU owner discount re-purchase deal. Bogus has it covered well why it is great it's dead, people just need to let the shock wear off and see it is the best.

Nintendo even has gone into it as enough to give ACA the graces to put their own stuff out for them anyway of good enough quality with their arcade titles and the efforts they've done so far have been fantastic and far better implemented with far nicer options than Nintendo would have never bothered doing on their own.

The Wii got it right for half its life or so, but once it got all weird and going into drip releases it has been nothing but an anchor to them circled with nothing but perpetual complaining, moaning about what hasn't appeared, wiggling price values, and other sketchiness.

[Sarge]

As long as other companies can put their wares out there (like the Neo Geo stuff), I'm cool with it. I didn't indulge much in Virtual Console, because I owned a ton of what was available already, and I got by on emulating for the rest. That's honestly the way to go, anyway, outside of flash carts; emulators like Nestopia or Mednafen are superior to the official offerings. I also think that Nintendo doesn't want to steal thunder from the Classic line, as well. I have to admit those are nice pieces of kit, and they might make more money overall with those than they would with VC.

I do hope those offerings for the service get a bit better than what's shown, though. I'm not terribly impressed with that lineup.

[Anayo]

^ We were playing at the same time lol.

[bmoc]

My long preordered copy of Battle Chasers Nightwar has finally shipped!

I hope they ironed out all the bugs after this long wait.

[bmoc]

I finished Battle Chasers tonight. The game was pretty easy until around level 15 and then it maintained a pretty good difficulty level where your party composition and perks matter. But holy hell that final boss is HARD. I was max level and everyone had their best weapon .

1st try - I went into the final boss fight with my dungeon crawling spec and got stomped bad.

2nd try - Tried it again without any changes because I am stubborn like that.

3rd try - I changed the perks on all my characters for maximum boss damage and made Alumon a dedicated healer. Mana be damned. I did a lot better but my Alumon got stunned at a critical moment and I lost.

4th try - Same setup. Healer didn't get stunned in the middle of a group heal so it was a cakewalk this time.

Despite the surprisingly overpowered final boss for a JRPG-style game, I really enjoyed my time with it. I'll probably play it on the go and get the best weapons for the characters that I didn't play much.

[PartridgeSenpai]

I tried out like 5 or 6 hours of Fire Emblem Warriors with my brother last night, and have found some good and some bad, and most of the bad is typical Omega Force bullshit.

The Good:
- The English voice acting is hilariously awful and the Japanese voice acting is quite good, so you have a good dualism of quality there (however unintentional that may've been )
- The way you level-up and unleash attacks is really fun and satisfying. Especially once you make someone do a prestige class and you make a great character like 4 times as good stat-wise
- You can switch between 4 characters (whom you choose at the start, even if you have more allied generals on the field at the time) per map and even instruct them where to go on a vaguely FE-style grid. You can also pair-up units for support attacks and blocks just like in Awakening and Fates, and even swap between your pair unit on the fly to continue a combo. It makes the weapon triangle implementation a lot cooler because you have to consider whom you're going to send to which parts of the map to try and get the best bang for your buck, as you deal an insane amount of damage to someone on whom you have advantage against.
- No inter-Switch co-op, oddly enough, but the local co-op is horizontal split-screen and it works just fine. The framerate isn't great, but it's more than playable and we never had an issue over hours of playing.

The Bad:
- The only weapon triangle they've kept in the game is the weapons one. Archers are good against flying units (like extremely so), but pretty bad against most other enemies and so squishy that it's hard to justify using them (even a bruiser like Takumi from Fates). Magic is in the game but it's its own thing, and to make up for there not being a magic weapon triangle they have a system where some classes are just good against other classes, which basically amounts to how mages just do well against other mages but only sometimes. It's really awkwardly implemented and a very strange design choice.
- The framerate is made playable in co-op because of the really staggarded way enemies spawn in. There were some quests we were trying to do but just couldn't at times becuase we were just waiting for the allied or enemy mini-boss unit to even spawn in so we could see it, let alone be able to attack it. There were times where I was fighting like 3 mini-generals at once just to have 3 more immediately spawn because I guess they were there the whole time but just hadn't spawned in yet. I'm not sure how that impacts single-player, and the game isn't really hard enough (even on hard mode that we were playing on) to really make this a really big problem, but it's still annoying.
- The usual Omega Force bullshit of having completely made characters whom they've chosen not to let you play is here. Four of the nine characters you can purchase across the 3 DLC packs are already in the game as completely finished unplayable NPC's, but to play as them you need to buy their respective DLC packs. Hyrule Warriors didn't have this kind of on-disc DLC nonsense, and it's really disappointing to see that kind of crap leaking into the Nintendo-published Omega Force games.
- Every fighter has almost exactly the same combos. Hyrule Warriors' characters largely played quite differently and all had several weapons with their own combo trees to unlock. FE Warriors has a lot of characters (seven more than Hyrule Warrior's base Wii U game, and one more with all their respective DLC's), but their combo trees are all virtually identical. Their attacks don't all do exactly the same things, so while the strategy to playing each isn't exactly the same, if you know the button combos for one you know them for every character. It's a shortcut something more recent Warriors games have had more and more and it's another thing that's crappy to see after how well Hyrule Warriors bucked that trend.
- A lot of the story missions reuse maps. The maps are the fairly linear base-capture-focused style that are so familiar in modern Warriors games, but FE Warriors reuses a lot of maps between story missions. Usually you'll be on a map, and you just can't go to half of it, then in one or two missions you'll be back at that map again but now you actually fight across the whole thing. More Omega Force nonsense. You get it by now if you've read this far

It's not a bad game, but it's far less polished than something like Hyrule Warriors. It takes a lot more shortcuts to pad out its content and make its DLC's more appealing. Again, it isn't a bad game and a lot of fun can be had with it, but when Hyrule Warriors DX, a far superior product, now available on both platforms that FE Warriors is on, I find it very difficult to recommend FE Warriors when the competing versions of Hyrule Warriors even have all their respective DLC's thrown in with them.

I'd definitely put FE Warriors on a similar level to the first Dragon Quest Heroes game, where it's an interesting spin-off, but definitely Omega Force's usual MO to the point where it will likely soften the impact of the experience for those who have played a lot of their games. The only reason I'd say FE Warriors is a little better is because of the inclusion of the co-op that's so mysteriously absent from DQH.